


a short history of almost something

by timeisweird



Series: snapshots [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Bad Writing, But not alcoholism, Doomed Timelines, Dr Nyarlathotep, Experimental Style, Gen, Inspired by Poetry, Misuse of alcohol, Not Really Character Death, Time Lords Are Aliens, Time Shenanigans, Weird Plot Shit, does it count as that, dont worry i (dont) know what im doing, i intentionally fucked up canonical dialogue and stuff, i mean im sure anyone who likes dr nyarlathotep, probability manipulation, technically, will find some value in this mess of a fic so, with some really funky shit, your lads back at it again yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-12 03:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20151352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeisweird/pseuds/timeisweird
Summary: It’s the end of the story."The good writers on strike again?""No, the good ones have moved on to better projects."Obviously.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thevoiceoflightcity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevoiceoflightcity/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Boy Who Killed Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476) by [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k). 
  * Inspired by [The Boy Who Killed Time (The Last Love Song Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/505303) by rosa_acicularis. 
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this a week or more ago, and unfortunately i can't really remember what poem inspired this, besides the fics already listed. but the title is from amanda palmer's "another year." 
> 
> formatting this was an absolute nightmare, i hope it turned out well and i hope yall appreciate the work i put into putting so many spaces everywhere. 
> 
> cw: alcohol (mis)use / using alcohol to cope. probably some sort of existential crisis thing. mind the tags and judge for yourself!

It’s been a stand-off for a while now. They’ve followed the fugitive to the end of an alleyway, brick on all sides. The Doctor urges them to put the device down, they don’t know what they’ve got, it's not for them, they’ll hurt someone, they’ll kill someone. They’ll kill themself if they press the wrong button and blow up a timeline in the process. 

Timeline explosions don’t mean much to Donna, so the angle she tries is that if they put the damn thing down and surrender peacefully, then maybe when the _ actual _ police show up, they won’t get their arse beat as badly. 

It doesn’t seem to be working as well as either of them had hoped. The fugitive gives them a bright, awful grin. The device in their hand hums, and they vanish in a blink of an eye. It’s not the strangest thing she’s watched happen, but it surprises her for a moment. 

Something in the air changes. Donna doesn’t know what. 

"Oh," the Doctor breathes. "Oh, no. Oh, I'm so, so sorry."

It takes Donna a moment to realize that they're looking not at the place where the fugitive once stood, but at _ her. _ They sound despondent. They _ look _ it. Dark bottomless eyes staring at her like she's a deadman walking. It sends shivers down her spine.

She asks, her heart beating fast, "Doctor, what – what is it, where'd they go?" 

"Nowhere," they say softly, like they’re dazed. In shock. "They're right where they've been standing. It's us that's moved." 

She stares at them. "Uh, no, we haven't."

There's a spark of annoyance in their eyes, and suddenly they’re fluid again. "Oh, how would you know, thick human brain, can't sense a thing." 

She crosses her arms over her chest. _ "What _was that?" 

The cracks in the facade fill with scar tissue. “Oh, nothing too bad, really. Bit of smoke and mirrors, we’ve moved, they haven’t. Everything looks the same but slightly off.” 

Donna isn't convinced. She knows it's something much more serious. “So, what does that mean for us, exactly?” 

**⁂**

"Can't believe I haven't asked yet, but have you got a cellar or a bar on this ship, or some alien equivalent?"

"Nine hundred years of space time travel and you think I haven't got a cellar full of mysterious and potent alien liquors for Earth girls like you to gorge yourselves on?"

She rolls her eyes and tries not to take offense. "Where is it?"

They pull a thread out of their sleeve, and tug hard enough to snap it. "Sub-corridor 38A, second door on the left, next to the replica of Trafalgar square." 

She groans. "I hate sub-corridor 38A. The heating's never working right, you've really got to fix it."

"Fine. The cellar's right next door now."

Donna lifts her head up, drops her hand to the table. "Sorry, what?" 

The Doctor makes a sweeping gesture towards the door of the kitchen, an unspoken _ see for yourself. _

She gets up, pokes her head out into the hallway. Sure enough, right next door, there's an old wooden door, covered in splintered cracks. Sloppily written on this door is the word _ CELLAR, _ in bright red paint. "Oh, well that's a bit…" 

"Obvious?" the Doctor suggests, suddenly at her side. "Yeah, isn't it just." 

Donna glances at them. Their eyes are dull, tired. For once, they nearly look their age. She grabs their sleeve and pulls them along as she walks to the cellar door. "Come on then, space man, let's have a pint." 

The Doctor pulls against her grip, but they let her pull them along. "What, why?" 

She pushes the door open to reveal a long staircase down into a cobbled basement. "'Cause why _ not? _ That's what you do when the world's ending, innit. Get drunk as all hell." 

They look like they're about to say something. Instead, their shoulders drop in defeat, though they didn’t put up that much of a fight to begin with. "Alright then." 

**⁂**

"So," Donna says. 

The Doctor swishes their glass around, watching the last bits of Laisian ginger cider swirl round and round. "So?" 

"World's ending, y'said. What's that gonna be like?" 

_ "You _said the world was ending. I didn't. 'S different."

"Is it?" 

"Mhm."

"Then what's–" She downs the rest of her pint, overcome by the need to get that much more alcohol in her before she asks the question. "–what's _ actually _ happening, then."

"Plot holes," they say. "Great big plot holes! Like – like _ Lost. _ You remember _ Lost?" _

"Good show," she says.

"Oh, _ great _ show. Also, _ awful _ show. We're on _ Lost." _

"'Scuse me?" 

"The island. Purgatory." They wave a hand around lazily. "Whatever it was supposed to be. That's where we are." 

"In _ purgatory?" _

They snap their fingers, or try to. They seem to be lacking a considerable amount of coordination. "On _ Lost, _ Donna, keep up." 

"Wait so. On _ Lost _ they're dead, though. We're already dead?" 

"No." They pause. "Well, yes. Well, no. Depends on the definition. Say you're… chained to a rock, tossed into the Thames, left to drown. Are you dead then?"

"Uh," says Donna. 

"You aren't _ technically _ dead, til you drown and your brain stops doing the thinking thing. But at the same time, you're pretty much dead because you're about to drown in the Thames." 

"Is this a physics thing?" She was rubbish at physics. 

"No, it's medical, I think."

"How's that?" 

"Lungs full of water. Health. Medical thing. I'm a Doctor, I would know." 

Donna picks up her pint to take a sip and grimaces when the foam spills over onto her hand. "Ah, damn." She sets the glass back down and wipes her hand on her jeans. Then squints at the full glass through blurry drunk eyes. "Wait." 

"Plot holes," the Doctor practically sings. They lean back in their chair and kick their feet up onto the table. "And missing scenes. It's the lazy writing."

Donna's still staring at her filled pint. She could have sworn she drank the thing. Then again, who really cares. All it means is more drink for her. "The good writers on strike again?" she asks absently.

"No, the good ones have moved on to better projects." 

In a rush of movement, they're up on their feet and stumbling to the liquor cabinet. They sigh loudly as they peruse their choices of toxic and semi-toxic liquids. "The universe is a story, Donna Noble. You can thank my people for that, self-centered bastards." 

"You're a self-centered bastard." 

The Doctor laughs much too loudly, then picks out a bottle of vividly blue liquor that reminds Donna too much like antifreeze to be appealing. They twist the top off and take a swig without so much as a wince. They sit back down in their chair heavily, holding the bottle with two hands like it might try to escape their clutches. 

"Not anymore," they say. "It's all humble, insignificant Doctor from here on out. Smoooooth sailing." They almost sound mournful, despite how they grin. "This timeline's going to fizzle out and I'll be nothing more than an echo of what could have been." 

"Fizzle out?"

"Plot holes. Missing scenes. Lazy writing. Haven't you been listening at _ all, _Donna Noble?" 

_Yes _, I've been listening, space idiot."

"Good. Good, good, good. You'll lose the thread if you don't."

"I don't think I ever had it. In, you know, the first place. You never said what the world ending would be like," she adds, pointing an accusing finger at them. Though, she's got the wobbly feeling that they actually have. 

"Mm. Yeah." The Doctor takes another drink from their blue bottle. "But it doesn't really matter in the end."

******

They're in the console room. The Doctor's underneath the console itself, wires and circuits and bits of metal strewn about around them as they poke at things that probably don't need to be poked at. Donna's sitting on the crash seat with a book and a cup of tea, milk only. 

"Like that," the Doctor says. 

"Like what?" Donna asks absently, turning another page of her book.

"Plot holes. Missing scenes. Lazy writing. Do you remember how we got here?" 

"Doctor, what're you going on about–" Her voice cuts out for a moment. "Weren’t we in the cellar?"

"And?" they prompt.

"And. And we were sloshed to the eyeballs, and–" She presses a hand to her forehead. "–_ why _ am I not hung over? I was drinking Amstel. I never drink Amstel, it always hates me in the morning."

The Doctor heaves themselves out from under the console. "You were drinking _ Amstel? _ Out of everything you could have chosen, you chose _ Amstel?" _

"What, and you've only ever made quality, tasteful choices in regards to what you shove into that mouth of yours, Dr. It's Only A Little Bit Deadly, Donna, But That's Where The Flavor Comes From." 

They narrow their eyes at her. 

******

The jungle is hot, humid, and absolutely _ gross. _ Donna feels like she's swimming through the water vapor in the air. For all she knows, there's a part of this place where that's actually a _ thing. _She's seen weirder stuff in space. 

The Doctor's got a machete that they're using to cut down the plants in their path. She's given them a wide berth, not trusting them to _ not _ accidentally lob off a limb of hers.

"What are we even doing out here?" she asks, wiping the sweat from her forehead. It's ineffective, however, what with how her hand's covered in sweat too. 

"Don't know, doesn't matter," the Doctor grits. They hold their machete with a tight grip and give a grouping of vines a rather aggressive slash. "Isn't like I can do anything about this, besides let it degrade. It'll be exponential." 

"You've got a _ time _ machine, Doctor. Can't you fix time?"

"Time isn't _ broken _, Donna. We got thrown into an unstable oxbow timeline. The wave-function's collapsed. Dead end, no outlet. Game over.”

"So what, we just do nothing? Until everything ends?"

"Yep! If we were in the proper timeline, then maybe I'd be able to do something, but I _ can't _ 'cause we _ aren't. _ " They give another enthusiastic swipe to the plants in front of them. "I _ tried _ to get us back to the proper timeline, but we're already there. _ They _ get to continue on, but. _ We're _. Stuck. Here." 

With every word spat, they slash at the foliage and branches and vines around them. 

*****

Donna's never found a park bench to be all that comfortable. Some people love them, she's pretty sure. Why else would a person donate a bench to a park and slap their name on it?

“I don’t remember you trying something,” she tells the Doctor, who’s sitting next to her on the park bench. 

They’re tossing seeds out to birds that aren’t there. They look down at the bag of seeds in their hand, and put it away. “Of course you wouldn’t,” they say. “Plot holes, missing scenes–”

“Lazy writing,” she finishes. “I know. I heard.” She looks around the park. “Where are we?”

“Is that really the question you want to waste your dialogue on?” the Doctor asks. 

She can’t help being confused. “What do you mean, waste my dialogue?” 

“We’re stumbling through crumbling scenes, and you want to ask ‘where are we?’” They look annoyed by her choices, as if this is her choice at all. “Is that really what’s important right now?” 

Her hands are on her hips. _ “You _ said nothing was important anymore, so why the hell not?” She looks around to find that they’re standing in a cemetery. The sky’s gone dark. The Doctor holds a lantern in their hand. Fitting. 

The Doctor spins around on their heel and walks off through the tombstones. “Donna, you’re blowing through the words faster than you can think up the ideas.” 

“I’m _ sorry?” _she demands. She follows after them through the library stacks. 

“A reused setting, very original,” the Doctor quips bitterly. They still have the lantern’s light to keep the nibbling shadows away. They don’t have the lantern.

“Can you _ stop _ walking away from me for one second? Please?”

They stop. Turn around. Their face is blank – Bleak – Bare –

What’s the word? 

“Why?” they step towards her. “What’s the _ point?” _

“Can’t we just – try something? _ Anything?” _ she shouts. “What have we got to lose?”

They glare. “The last few words on the page.”

“What does that even _ mean?” _

The pair stands among fragile ruins on an empty planet. A distance between them. In the middle, 

nothing. 

“Don’t worry about it,” they tell her. It’s a poor attempt at comfort. No energy left in that lanky body of theirs. The facade's decaying along with the narrative. 

Her eyes sting. She rubs at them furiously with the sleeve of her shirt. Better the anger than the despair. 

“Stop _ lying _ to me, Doctor. You didn’t lie at the beginning, why now? What’s changed? What’s–” 

That’s a lie. 

Plot holes, missing scenes, lazy writing. 

Donna’s always known that nine hundred years is a bit of a lie. Was. Whatever.

Oh, what does it matter. 

Can’t be helped. 

None of this can. Heat death of the universe, or something. 

Silence. Then, 

“You okay?” 

“I’ll be okay. You?” 

“I’m alright.” 

Another lie. 

“Always alright. Isn’t that how it goes with you?”

“Is it?”  
  


  
Entropy is chaos is apathy is reality before the

thread. 

“That’s what you said. Always alright means not really alright at all.”

Another lie. 

One more wouldn't hurt.

“Ah, right. I remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alas, i must admit my sins: youre right, the drunk scene is based on good omens.
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

_Somewhere where the Web of Time is still being woven… _

It’s been a stand-off for a while now. They’ve followed the fugitive to the end of an alley way, brick on all sides. The Doctor urges them to put the device down, they don’t know what they’ve got, they’ll hurt someone, they’ll kill someone. They’ll kill themself if they press the wrong button and blow up a timeline in the process. 

Timeline explosions don’t mean much to Donna, so the angle she tries is that if they put the damn thing down and surrender peacefully, then maybe when the _ actual _ police show up, they won’t get their arse beat as badly. 

To her surprise, the fugitive pauses, like they’re reconsidering. 

“Can you promise they won’t just execute me on the spot?” the fugitive asks, their posture guarded, hesitant, willing to reach but not willing to grab quite yet. 

What Donna doesn’t see are the scissors and yarn and knitting needles that the Doctor holds in their hands, working furiously to avoid all the dead-ends. The fugitive doesn’t see this either. It’s a metaphor, obviously. 

“We can do our best,” the Doctor says with a solemn nod, then they reach their hand out. 

The fugitive takes the chance. They walk closer. Enough so that they only have to stretch a little bit to drop the device into the Time Lord’s hands in order to maintain a distance they feel is still comfortable and safe, as if distance could keep them safe. The fugitive is lying to themself, obviously. 

The Doctor closes their fingers around the device and pockets it. They grin.

When Donna asks later, they’ll say that they turned it into the police. She doesn’t know what it does. Or did. 

Obviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


End file.
